Indra Raj talks with Delvon Lamarr of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio about life on the road, the group’s recent tours through Europe and Japan, and why audiences overseas have embraced their blend of soul jazz, blues, R&B, rock, and more. Lamarr also shares the remarkable story of how he went from playing drums and trumpet to discovering the Hammond B3 organ almost by accident, and explains why the trio calls its genre-defying performances “feel-good music.” The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio performs at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver on July 10. (Air Date 6/24/26).
Listen to the interview here:
Transcript:
Indra Raj: All right, you’re tuned into KGNU FM 88.5 Boulder, KGNU 1390 Denver. My name’s Indra Raj, and I am very happy to be welcoming onto our airwaves Delvon Lamarr from the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. Are you there, Delvon?
Delvon Lamarr: I am. How are you?
Indra Raj: Great. I’m always so excited when the phone works. It’s good to be in touch with you while you’re currently on this tour, although I was looking at your past dates, and it seems like you’re kind of perpetually on tour.
Delvon Lamarr: I’m always on tour.
Indra Raj: Is that by design?
Delvon Lamarr: I don’t know. I like it.
Indra Raj: Yeah.
Delvon Lamarr: I like being on the road. It’s kind of a catch-22. Sometimes I’m on the road and I just want to go home, and sometimes I’m home and I’m like, “Man, this sucks.”
Indra Raj: Yeah. Where is home for you?
Delvon Lamarr: I live in the northwest part of Indiana.
Indra Raj: Okay. Do you play a lot in your home area?
Delvon Lamarr: No, I don’t. I hardly play over here.
Indra Raj: Yeah.
Delvon Lamarr: Sometimes I get calls from other people. I play a lot with Joe Marsenek. I do some stuff with him whenever he calls me. I like playing with that cat. He’s cool. Other than that, when I’m not on the road, I pretty much just chill at home.
Indra Raj: I can imagine you need some time off from all that touring and traveling. Earlier this year I saw that you were in Europe. How was that leg of the tour?
Delvon Lamarr: It was amazing. It was a long tour. We started off in Europe, went through a bunch of European cities, and went back to Norway. We’d only played in Oslo before, but this time we got to play in two other cities there. We’d never played in the Netherlands before, so we had three shows there. That was cool.
Then we flew over to Japan, and that was absolutely amazing. It was our first time there. We’d been working on that for about 10 years, and we finally did it.
Indra Raj: What do you notice about the reception to your music across the pond versus here in the States?
Delvon Lamarr: It’s a different level over there. It seems like they have a deeper love and appreciation for this type of music. Everything is sold out, no matter the size of the room. People really appreciate it, and it’s just a different experience than here.
Sometimes we can’t get people to show up to shows here. I don’t know what it is.
Indra Raj: Sometimes I wonder if it’s just a lack of awareness, or maybe not as much emphasis on instrumental music in the States.
Your group is an organ trio, so for those who aren’t familiar with what that means—and your website describes your music as “feel-good music”—how would you describe what you do every night?
Delvon Lamarr: It’s a tricky thing for us. We’re what you’d call a classic organ trio. I play Hammond B3, there’s a guitarist, and a drummer.
Because we cross so many genres, it’s hard to classify what we do. The basis is soul jazz, but we also have rock and roll, blues, R&B, and we even throw in country music sometimes.
It’s really hard to define because it’s different every night. We have set tunes, but I don’t make set lists. I alter songs as we go along. Sometimes I feel like playing something else, so I’ll just call tunes during the show.
Sometimes other songs pop up in the middle of a tune and we’ll just go there. I’ll throw in a Michael Jackson tune or a Dolly Parton tune—whatever I hear in that moment, that’s what we do.
Indra Raj: You guys must be a pretty tight group to be able to flow like that so easily.
Delvon Lamarr: It helps being a trio. It’s harder to do that with a big band.
Since I carry the bass on the organ, I can kind of dictate where the music goes if my band is listening—and we’re all really good listeners. They’ll hear me do something and think, “Oh, I know that,” and they’ll jump right in.
That’s why we call it feel-good music. There isn’t one set genre. We just want to make people feel good.
Indra Raj: That’s the magic of live music too—being able to respond to what’s happening in the room or among the band in the moment.
You guys are going to be at Cervantes’ Masterpiece in Denver on July 10, and when we wrap up here, I’ll be giving away tickets for that show.
Before we go, one thing I noticed about your musical background is that you originally played drums and trumpet before switching to the organ. Can you tell me a little about that transition? It’s pretty unique.
Delvon Lamarr: It’s kind of a cliché because I always say the organ chose me. I didn’t choose it.
I used to play at a club in Seattle called the Art Bar. I got a gig with an organist named Joe Doria. I was playing drums at the time, and I’d never really seen the organ played outside of church. The pastor’s wife played organ in church, but that was my only exposure.
The way my drums were set up, I could see everything Joe was doing while we played. We did that for a long time.
Then one night another drummer came in and sat in, so I asked Joe if I could play the organ.
I literally sat down and played it like I’d been playing my whole life. I was using the pedals, walking bass lines—we were playing straight-ahead jazz, bebop—and I just started playing. I hadn’t really played piano before that.
It was like I already knew how to play it. I just never stopped after that.
Indra Raj: That is really amazing. The organ is such a complicated instrument, with the foot pedals, both hands, multiple keyboards. It’s incredible that just watching someone play and having that experience was enough for you to pick it up.
Delvon Lamarr: Yeah. Maybe one of these days I’ll learn how to play it.
Indra Raj: I love it.
Delvon Lamarr, thank you so much for joining me today. You’ll be with the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio at Cervantes’ Masterpiece in Denver on July 10. I’m going to take calls right now at 303-442-4242 if you’d like to win a pair of tickets to that show.
Delvon, thank you so much for joining me today on KGNU.
Delvon Lamarr: Thanks for having me.
